This is illogical. "I don't know" is a perfectly valid response to the number of warheads China has. "I don't know, therefore it has a massive secret arsenal" is not a valid inference.
There's also the issue of how many warheads China actually has vs. how many the US thinks it has. The former is unknowable unless you're a very senior Chinese military official or the Chinese president. The latter is a very public number: 350 give or take a few dozen. This is what the US is taking into account in planning a nuclear war against China, so for all intents and purposes this is the number of warheads China has.
Like I said, if China has a secret stockpile of warheads somewhere (and there's no reason to believe it does other than wishful thinking), then it had better announce it soon because they're doing no good staying secret. In addition, even if China has substantially more then it still wouldn't be at parity with the US. There's no way it can do that without creating new fissile material and that would be known very quickly.
I've never said they had a massive stockpile as in one larger than USSR or something.
There are factors I dont know but what I do know at least is that China has a lot more missiles, even just counting ultra modern ones, than what fits 350 warheads.
So you're assuming a lot of missiles are empty, despite the missiles being way more expensive than warheads themselves?
Looking at where the 350 claim comes from, apparently its from a 1980s estimate. So, in 40 years China just sat around never introducing new warheads than the moldy 80s ones, even as several generations of new ICBM came out? I'm sorry but that requires an insane suspension of disbelief.
Reasonable estimate based on amount of missiles is probably around the 1000 range, not much higher and not much lower. Enough to destroy the whole western world, especially with Russia's legacy systems in there too.
If the situation escalates to nuclear war, which it first have to escalate into conventional war first for a long time before nukes become a necessity, you'll see the full lineup of the rocket force then. If not, you'll see it the moment China decides it needs to glass the US homeland because there's no other option. Same reason Israel doesn't divulge how many nukes they have and won't until shit is absolutely sure to go down. Not divulging it allows them to avoid scrutiny in international arms treaties and keeps the enemy guessing.
Out of all suggestions seen in this thread, removing the NFU is the most stupid one. The NFU is one of China's most important tool to winning a conventional war with America. Having NFU means that if a ballistic missile is inbound at an US carrier or even an US city, US will not be able to escalate because everyone knows it is a conventional and not possibly a nuclear missile.
NFU might seem like a dove policy at first glance but in reality its a hawk one that allows China to fully use its tech advantage in rocketry without worrying about nuclear war escalation.
